“You would be amazed as to how some of those who presided over the destiny of Guyana and called themselves leaders, colluded in the draining of the people’s money for narrow,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, partisan, political purposes and so corruption in Guyana remains a major issue…”By Kiana Wilburg Corruption continues to remain a major issue in Guyana, Prime Minster Moses Nagamootoo said. Investigations into some public information entities revealed that there are “tremendous and awful manners of sleaze and corruption,” he said.The Prime Minister made this comment on Friday at the Pegasus Hotel where former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, launched his second book, “Public Accountability at the Crossroads-The Guyana Experience.”During his remarks on the importance of accountability and transparency, Nagamootoo, who is performing the duties of President, said that based on ongoing internal investigations, he received some “disgusting” aspects of the preliminary reports which pointed to collusion and bad management.The Prime Minister said, “Not only was there bad management but also political direction to pay people who were not on the staff of certain entities for work that was totally unrelated to the entity.”Nagamootoo said that the reports revealed that political direction was given for millions of dollars to be paid for political advertisements in newspapers and pamphlets that were printed overseas and perhaps never seen here in Guyana.He said that those reports noted that millions of taxpayers’ dollars were used to fund television programmes overseas during the 2015 elections.“You would be amazed at how some of those who presided over the destiny of Guyana and called themselves leaders, colluded to drain the people’s money for narrow, partisan, political purposes and so corruption in Guyana remains a major issue…”While the Prime Minister refrained from directly naming some of the entities fingered in these corrupt activities, he did make mention of the highly contentious report on the National Communications Network (NCN).“I received quite a number of calls almost persistently from sections of the media for me to comment on what would be done on the NCN report and you know it indicted some officials of the NCN for malfeasance in office.”Nagamootoo added, “Some of the officers, at least one resigned and another suspended. But that report had been sent to the former President, Donald Ramotar, and we haven’t heard anything about the report from him…”The Prime Minister said that a few days ago, he received a copy of the report and he intends to study it and make a recommendation to President David Granger on the way forward.He said however,Wholesale Basketball Jerseys, that the course of action he intends to advise on “does not include prosecution for wrongdoing in the NCN.”In mid-2012, a leaked report on investigations at the state-owned NCN revealed startling details of how two Managers attempted to pressure female staffers to backdate a $3.6 million invoice to January to cover up their tracks.But the staffers from the Marketing Department refused and later told investigators that they thought it unethical at the time.The leaked report, while not making it clear, suggested that the attempts were made even while the investigations were ongoing or about to start. The report also suggested that both officials were probably desperate at the time.In June 2012, Programme Manager Martin Goolsarran was suspended for eight weeks while Mohamed Sattaur, the Chief Executive Officer, tendered his resignation after the report was tendered to NCN’s Board of Directors. The events had rocked NCN to the core.Leader of the Alliance For Change,David Njoku Jersey, Khemraj Ramjattan, had called for a criminal investigation against the two men and had accused the previous Government of attempting to cover up the report which he said should be handed over to the police as well.It will be recalled that the NCN investigation was sparked after revelations in Parliament that the entity, which controls the country’s only authorized radio stations and has a network of television stations across the land, in 2011 raked in more than $500M in revenue, yet wanted Government subsidies.Following complaints, the Board had ordered a probe into reports that all was not right with payments from GT&T following last year’s hugely popular Jingle and Song Competition.GT&T had hired NCN to tape the show but the state entity decided in turn to sub-contract the work to Hits and Jams Television.The investigations found that Goolsarran was paid more than $3M in cheques from GT&T. He then deposited these into his own personal bank account.The report made it clear that both the CEO and Goolsarran failed to carry out their duties diligently and professionally.The special audit report on NCN that was commissioned by former President Donald Ramotar had been sitting on his desk since 2012.Despite repeated requests from the media, and promises from the former President, he steadfastly refused to release the report and take actions.Within weeks of the Granger administration taking office, more than 20 persons who were secretly working at the Office of President under the guise of being ‘Work Processor Operator’, but were actually doing political work under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government,NCAA Basketball Jerseys, had their services terminated.Almost a dozen of them had contracts with NCN,Cheap Jerseys From China, reportedly receiving salaries from that entity as well as from the Office of the President.The 20-odd persons were said to be under the watch of Kwame Mc Coy, the Press Liaison, who served under the administrations of Bharrat Jagdeo and then Donald Ramotar.Among the persons in the unit was a relative of a former senior PPP/C Minister and another is closely related to a Parliamentarian who lives in Berbice and works at the NCN branch.